Singing Stone

This spell traps a short tune - one that the caster can sing with three breaths or less - in a stone. Whenever the stone is either tapped or entirely immersed in water, it emits the tune repeating it at 1-turn intervals if immersion continues. Any solid stone no larger than the caster's fist will serve, and the music can consist only of sounds the caster can make himself (in other words, singing, playing an instrument and thumping out a rhythm simultaneously as about as complex as the captured sound can be). In the past many gemstones have been used for this spell, though it is a false rumor that granite and other simple stones cannot carry tunes as beautifully.

The "tune" need not involve vocal sounds; it may be a message spoken or chanted rather than sung. In any case the pitch, timbre, and inflections of the voice and/or instrumental sounds are precisely duplicated, and listeners could mistake the sounds of a singing stone for a particular person's actual voice. This spell has been used to prepare traps, leave behind wills or dying messages, and to preserve the best work of the bards. Certain temples of Milil have entire libraries of carefully racked stones. Long tunes are played back by tapping a row of stones, each one enchanted with this spell to capture a segment of the ongoing tune.

The maker of the sound to be captured must be the caster. There is no known way to use this spell to capture the words or song of another being. The spell does not pick up the words of others or background noise, even if such things were present as the spell was cast, but it does preserve throat-clearings mistakes, and other noises - such as the clatter of something dropped by the caster - that the caster may not want preserved. The sound is preserved at the volume level reaching the stone. Loud shouting or music is recorded as loud.

The spell range refers to the fact that the stone must be touched. The caster can, if desired, move away from the stone to achieve an echoing effect or a distant sound and can even choose to move continuously toward, away from, or around the stone while recording. The recorded sound will reflect this. The recording time is the three breaths following the round of casting when the stone is touched, and the magic causes the stone to glow a faint rose-red while it is capturing sounds.

Type of Magic

Priest

Spell Level

4th

School

Alteration

Sphere

Divination, Elemental Earth

Reversible?

No

Range

Touch

Components

Verbal, Somatic, Material
The material component is a small hollow metal tube (chime).

Duration

Permanent

Casting Time

7

Area of Effect

1 stone

Saving Throw

None